Highlights

Some of our recent notable pro bono matters include:

UNITAID Provides Innovative Funding to Battle Disease

Paul, Weiss lawyers represented five donor countries — France, the United Kingdom, Norway, Brazil and Chile — in connection with their negotiations with the World Health Organization to establish the UNITAID program, through a referral by our client the William J. Clinton Foundation. UNITAID’s mission is to drive down the prices of drugs to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis in developing countries. The program is funded by an innovative levy imposed by the donor countries on airline tickets.

Volunteers of Legal Service Enrich Children’s Lives

Paul, Weiss lawyers assisted the Volunteers of Legal Service (VOLS) Children’s Project, an effort designed to deliver pro bono legal services to the poor children of New York City. Our lawyers helped VOLS provide services to children and their families at Bellevue Hospital Center in New York City. We worked with doctors and social workers on a variety of projects, including securing school placements for children with special needs, winning social security benefits for poor children and obtaining an audition at a performing arts high school for a gifted child.

Brennan Center for Justice Defends Voting Rights

Paul, Weiss lawyers worked with the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law on cutting-edge election law issues, fighting election procedures that would have disenfranchised thousands of eligible voters nationwide. Together, we brought suit in federal district court in Seattle and obtained a preliminary injunction prohibiting the Washington Secretary of State from refusing to register voters whose registration applications do not exactly match information maintained in other government databases. The court ruled that Washington’s matching statute violates the Voting Rights Act and the Help America Vote Act passed in the wake of the 2000 presidential election. We also participated as amicus curiae in suits challenging the constitutionality of laws requiring citizens to present photo ID before voting in Georgia, Indiana and Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Restaurant Opportunities Center Fights for Fair Working Conditions

When the owners of a large, upscale restaurant in New York City refused to pay their workers minimum wage and took advantage of their largely immigrant workforce, Paul, Weiss stepped in to fight for fair working conditions. We filed a suit on behalf of the workers, alleging that owners and managers of the restaurant had knowingly violated federal, state and local labor laws. The defendants responded to this lawsuit by firing, disciplining and otherwise retaliating against the workers who had asserted their rights. In return we filed a preliminary injunction motion to stop this retaliation. We scored a major victory when the district court granted our motion, finding that there was a disturbing pattern of evidence that the restaurant had retaliated against the most vulnerable workers. This injunction has given the workers some interim protection as we press forward to vindicate their rights under the labor laws.

Major Strides Made in Rights of Guantánamo Bay Detainees

Our lawyers initiated habeas proceedings on behalf of 13 Saudi Arabian detainees being held by the U.S. military in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Three of our clients have been released back to Saudi Arabia. Paul, Weiss presented the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia with allegations from our clients demonstrating a range of abuses and inadequate medical care. In the first ruling of its kind, the court ordered the Bush administration to inform defense lawyers about the condition of detainees at the Guantánamo military base. This victory will allow detainees’ lawyers to have greater access to their clients and their clients’ medical records. In issuing the ruling, Judge Kessler noted: “The court recognizes that Petitioners’ counsel are providing their services on a pro bono basis. Such pro bono representation, especially in controversial and high profile cases such as these, is the very finest tradition of the American legal profession.”

Same-Sex Couples Continue the Fight for Marriage Rights

We continued our leadership role in groundbreaking civil rights litigation. Along with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), we have acted as lead counsel in a case challenging New York state’s failure to provide civil marriage rights to same-sex couples, arguing that the denial of civil marriage rights to same-sex couples violated the New York Constitution’s Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses. Paul, Weiss also has advanced other issues related to the civil rights of gays and lesbians, and has filed an amicus curiae brief on behalf of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund Inc., in Maryland’s high court, arguing in support of civil marriage rights for gays and lesbians.

Medicare Rights Center Fights for Fair Drug Coverage

Impoverished, ill, disabled and elderly Americans on Medicare and Medicaid faced the threat of losing their life-saving medications when a new Medicare prescription drug program took effect on January 1, 2006. Six-million citizens who had formerly received prescription drug benefits from Medicaid were supposed to move to the new drug plan at that time. When it became clear that the government’s transition plan for these millions of recipients was deeply flawed, Paul, Weiss lawyers, working with the Medicare Rights Center, brought a lawsuit against Michael Leavitt, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in federal district court in Manhattan.

NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and Appleseed, Inc. Help Displaced Katrina Victims

Our lawyers helped spearhead two important efforts to protect the rights and livelihood of Hurricane Katrina victims. Paul, Weiss lawyers contributed more than 500 hours to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, assisting the organization in drafting a plan to locate displaced Louisiana residents and provide them with absentee ballots and voting information. The firm also helped Appleseed, Inc. create the first comprehensive report on the condition of more than one-million Hurricane Katrina evacuees. The report, “A Continuing Storm: The On-Going Struggles of Hurricane Katrina Evacuees,” has been featured in Newsweek, The Washington Post, CBS News and hundreds of other media outlets. It highlights the continuing struggles of Katrina evacuees, in an effort to ensure that they get the continued attention they need and deserve.

Death Row Inmates Obtain Rare Victories

We achieved a major victory in the case of Johnny Paul Penry, a 41-year-old man with the mental capacity of a seven-year-old, who has been on death row in Texas for 25 years. We began representing Mr. Penry in 1989, after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned his first conviction and sent it back to the trial court. After Mr. Penry’s third trial ended in a death verdict, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned Mr. Penry’s sentence and remanded the case for a new sentencing trial — a rare victory in a capital murder case.

Additionally, we represented Kenneth Loggins, an inmate on Alabama’s death row who was 17 years old at the time he was convicted. We obtained a reversal from the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals based on Supreme Court precedent that the Eighth Amendment prohibits the execution of juvenile offenders. We are now challenging the imposition of a life-without-parole sentence on juvenile offenders.

Community Integration Sought for the Mentally Ill

On behalf of our client Disability Advocates Inc., we have sought to enforce the rights of approximately 4,000 individuals with serious mental illnesses residing in adult homes in New York City. We sued New York state for violating the Americans With Disabilities Act by segregating these individuals in poorly run adult homes that offer little or no treatment rehabilitation services and have sought integrated housing opportunities for these individuals as well as a comprehensive process to help them reside in more integrated settings.

Planned Parenthood Court Victory Upheld

We continued to be lead counsel to physicians targeted by anti-abortion zealots. We obtained the U.S. Supreme Court’s denial of defendants’ second petition for a writ of certiorari, thereby preserving the Ninth Circuit’s affirmance of the judgment and injunction we had obtained. This decision protects our clients from threatening conduct on the Internet and affirms our clients’ right to compensation and punitive damages for defendants’ threats. The case remains
the only civil jury verdict under the federal statute protecting reproductive health care workers. Our lawyers also filed amicus briefs in the three reproductive rights cases that were heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.

BRISC Assists Business Owners in Upper Manhattan

Our client the Business Resource & Investment Service Center (BRISC) is an economic development corporation that provides loans and technical assistance to entrepreneurs in the northern Manhattan neighborhoods of Harlem, East Harlem, Washington Heights and Inwood. Our corporate, real estate, tax and other lawyers have structured business entities, arranged financing, negotiated commercial leases and drafted agreements for a variety of BRISC clients.

Battered Women Obtain a Second Chance

Working with Sanctuary for Families, a nonprofit group dedicated to the safety, healing and promotion of self-sufficiency of battered women, we scored major victories on behalf of two families. We successfully opposed a petition brought in New York federal court by an abusive husband who was attempting to return his wife and three children to Israel. We also represented a Hungarian woman and her son who were abused by her then-boyfriend. The boyfriend forced the pair to move to the United States, where he proceeded to force the mother to work in the sex trade. We secured for her the full custody of the child in New York.

Living Wage Ordinance Upheld

Together with the Brennan Center for Justice, we achieved a landmark victory in our defense of Santa Fe’s Living Wage Ordinance. The 2005 ordinance rectified an inadequate $5.15 U.S. and New Mexico minimum hourly wage by raising it to $9.50 in 2006 and, subject to further approval by the City Council, to $10.50 in 2008, and increasing it by the consumer price index thereafter. The New Mexico Court of Appeals affirmed an earlier trial court ruling upholding the ordinance, which resulted in decent wages for thousands of low-income families. The ordinance is expected to be an important precedent for nationwide efforts to establish the authority of cities to raise the minimum wage.